Tag Archives: society

Islamic radicalism from North Caucasus spreads in Central Asia

ALMATY/Kazakhstan, APRIL 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tsarnaev brothers, blamed for bombing the Boston marathon earlier this month, were ethnic Chechens, brought up in Kyrgyzstan who apparently learnt about radical Islam in Dagestan.

This link, between radical Islamic ideas in Russia’s North Caucasus and Central Asia, can’t be ignored. Domestic security in Central Asia and NATO’s main route for withdrawing its equipment from Afghanistan are potentially vulnerable.

But, although bomb attacks blamed on radical Islamists, increased in 2010 and 2011 in Kazakhstan, several Almaty-based analysts said the impact of radical Islamic ideology from the North Caucasus on Central Asia should not be overstated.

“Today there is no direct connection reported between the insurgency in North Caucasus and terrorist acts taking place in Kazakhstan,” Zhulduz Baizakov, a Kazakhstan-based analyst, said.

“The ideology, methods and purposes are different.”

Instead, analysts said that the radicalising influence from the Arabian peninsula and Afghanistan was more important than from the North Caucasus.

But the North Caucasus’ brand of radical Islam is accessible. It’s also worrying the Kazakh security forces. They are concerned with both the trickle of young Kazakh men fighting with rebels in Dagestan and the emergence of Islamic literature from the North Caucasus in Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)

Pension age increase backlash in Kazakhstan

APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A man protesting against a proposed increase in the retirement age for women hurled two eggs at the Kazakh minister for labour, Serik Abdenov. The Kazakh government wants to raise the retirement age for women to 63 from 58.

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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)

Kazakhstan to have more police-women

APRIL 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s prosecutor-general wants to change the face of policing in the country. By 2020, media quoted deputy Prosecutor-General Zhakyp Assanov as saying, women will make up roughly 30% of the Kazakh police force, up from today’s figure of about 3%.

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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)

Kazakhstan lifts moratorium on subsoil licences

APRIL 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government announced that it had lifted a moratorium on granting more licences to subsoil developers, underscoring the sector’s importance for Kazakhstan’s future development.

Minerals and energy have been the backbone of Kazakhstan’s economic boom since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and that is not likely to change.

Global demand for metals may have dropped but lifting the ban, which was introduced in 2008 to allow a smooth introduction of new tax codes, will still spur foreign investor interest in Kazakhstan. The country simply holds too much untapped mineral wealth to be ignored.

And the Kazakh minister for new technologies and industry, Asset Issekeshev, immediately invited foreign companies to apply for licences at a tender in May.

Most of the $170b foreign investment in Kazakhstan since 1991 has been in the energy sector although senior government officials told Reuters the emphasis now would be on metals and non-hydrocarbon minerals.

To further encourage this, the government suggested that miners may be exempt from VAT.

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(News report from Issue No. 132, published on April 22 2013)

Suicides among the Kazakh military

APRIL 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two Kazakh soldiers committed suicide on consecutive days, local media reported, highlighting a continued problem with bullying in the military. In Astana on April 4, one soldier hanged himself. The following day, in Karaganda, another soldier shot himself. Bullying is common in armies across the ex-Soviet Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)

Nazarbayev calls to reduce wealth gap

APRIL 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps wary of potential civil strife, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev called on his government to try to spread Kazakhstan’s increasing wealth more evenly.

Signs of inequalities in Kazakhstan are not hard to find. In Almaty, the latest Western SUV competes for road space with battered and rusting second-hand cars. Street vendors sell shashlik, barbequed meat on skewers, for a few tenge across the street from restaurants charging hundreds of dollars for dishes cooked by a French chef.

And these inequalities are potentially dangerous, as a demonstration in the western town of Zhanaozen on Dec. 14 2011 that ended with the death of at least 14 protesters showed. The Kazakh government blamed inequality and a lack of job opportunities for the demonstration.

Now Mr Nazarbayev has said that more can be done. Specifically, he said that roughly 8% of families in Kazakhstan lived off $100 per person per month. According to the World Bank, which measures inequality using the Gini coefficient, Kazakhstan has a sizeable inequality gap. That gap, though, is slowly reducing.

The Gini coefficient measures inequality using a score of zero to 100, zero being perfectly equal. The latest data on the World Bank’s website showed that Kazakhstan scored 29 in 2009, down from 33.9 in 2003. This compares favourably with its neighbours and is lower than many European countries.

Still, as Mr Nazarbayev knows, perception is ever important.

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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)

Crazed camel kills Kazakh woman

APRIL 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A demented camel attacked and killed its elderly female owner in western Kazakhstan, local media reported. The story highlights the continued widespread tradition in Kazakhstan of rearing camels. Camel meat is often eaten and the milk is fermented into an alcoholic drink called shubat.

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(News report from Issue No. 130, published on April 5 2013)

Rumours fly over Uzbek President’s health

MARCH 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – It doesn’t take long these days, for rumours and speculation to start flying around on the health of a Central Asian leader if they disappear from the public’s gaze for a few days.

Earlier this month Kazakh president Nurtulan Nazarbayev popped up in Israel on a surprise trip. He was photographed with Israeli president Shimon Peres but that didn’t quell speculation that the real reason he was in Israel was to make use of the country’s hospitals.

Now 75-year-old Uzbek president Islam Karimov is at the centre of speculation over his health. Unsubstantiated rumours have lingered for years that Mr Karimov is unwell but when he, unusually, disappeared from sight for a few days in mid-March the intensity of the leadership gossip increased. Opposition sources said that Mr Karimov had suffered a heart-attack shortly after being filmed dancing at a Norouz celebration on March 19.

On March 27, the presidential website did publish a video of Mr Karimov meeting with Kazakh foreign minister Yerlan Idrissov. His apparent good health was confirmed by Kazakh officials later who said they witnessed the meeting.

But, crucially, Mr Karimov hasn’t actually appeared in public. Until he does, the speculation will continue.

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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)

 

Georgia aims to improve its prisons

MARCH 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prisons in the former Soviet Union have a reputation for being notoriously tough places; human rights groups routinely criticise them for being over-crowded and Georgia had been no exception.

Statistics showed that Georgia had one of the highest prison populations in the world compared to the size of its population.

The Georgian authorities, though, had a solution and since January they have released nearly half the inmates in its prisons in a mass amnesty.

The amnesty reduced Georgia’s prison population to 11,107 from 19,349 in December, according to local media. These were mainly people convicted of robbery and crimes which didn’t involve violence.

But like many aspects of Georgian life, the amnesty was also politically highly charged.

Georgia’s politics is split between supporters of President Mikheil Saakashvili and supporters of PM Bidzina Ivanishvili. Mr Saakashvili declined to sign off on the amnesty bill, forcing it back through parliament where enough of his MPs sided with his opponents to pass it.

Even with the prison amnesty it’s still unclear what’s more important, the humanitarian gesture or the politics.

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(News report from Issue No. 128, published on March 22 2013)

Tree planting begins in Turkmen desert

MARCH 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nearly 500,000 public sector employees in Turkmenistan picked up shovels and headed out to the desert to plant trees as part of their annual anti-desertification strategy. Turkmenistan has been pursuing an anti- desertification programme since the late-1990s.

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(News report from Issue No. 127, published on March 15 2013)